Obama re-elect hires longtime lobbyist married to longtime NPR host who will continue as NPR contributor during Obama campaign

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"Norris will continue to report for (NPR's) “All Things Considered,” but not on politics"...

10/24/11, "Obama campaign brings on ex-lobbyist as senior adviser," The Hill, K. Bogardus

"President Obama’s reelection campaign has hired a former lobbyist to serve as a senior adviser to the 2012 team.

The Obama campaign announced Monday the hiring of Broderick Johnson, a veteran of the Clinton White House and Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) 2004 presidential campaign.

Obama positioned himself as an enemy of K Street and special interests during his first presidential campaign. He repeatedly vowed that lobbyists would not run his White House and refused to accept campaign contributions from registered lobbyists.

Johnson is a former partner at the law firm Bryan Cave and was registered to lobby up until April 2011 for several major companies and trade groups, including the Financial Services Forum, Comcast Corporation, and Microsoft, according to lobbying disclosure records.

Johnson left Bryan Cave in April this year, deregistered as a lobbyist and co-founded the Collins Johnson Group, a strategic communications firm, with Art Collins, a former adviser to the Obama 2008 and Kerry 2004 presidential campaigns.

Johnson was also a lobbyist for AT&T before he joined Bryan Cave, according to lobbying disclosure records....

Johnson said in the statement he had “great pride” in accepting the position....

Considered close to this White House by other lobbyists, Johnson described himself as an “informal adviser” to the Obama 2008 campaign, according to his biography on the Collins Johnson Group’s website."...

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The Hill says the wife of Obama's adviser will be 'stepping away from' NPR host duties during the campaign, allowing readers to believe she's stepping aside from NPR. They don't report she'll remain a contributor/reporter to NPR programs.

10/24/11, "Johnson’s wife, Michele Norris, is stepping away from her duties as co-host of NPR’s "All Things Considered" until after the 2012 presidential campaign."

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"Norris will continue to report for “All Things Considered"...

10/24/11, "NPR’s Norris to step away from ‘ATC’ hosting duties while husband works for Obama campaign," Jim Romenesko, Poynter.org

"NPR.org
Michele Norris, who has co-hosted “All Things Considered” since 2002, says she’ll step away from those duties while husband Broderick Johnson works for the Obama re-election campaign as a senior adviser. “This has all happened very quickly, but working closely with NPR management, we’ve been able to make a plan that serves the show, honors the integrity of our news organization and is best for me professionally and personally,” she writes in a note to listeners (posted below). Norris will continue to report for “All Things Considered,” but not on politics, according to a tweet from NPR media reporter David Folkenflik. He also notes: “@michele_norris recused in ’04 when Johnson aided Kerry’s congressional outreach;

• not in 2008 when he was unpaid adviser to Obama camp.”"

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An example of self-proclaimed watchdogs 'keeping our democracy safe' being married to the people they're supposedly guarding us against. ed.

via Hot Air